Robert Ludlum

“Learn always but never appear to be learning.”

“The end did not justify the means, but justifiable means that brought about a fair and necessary conclusion were not to be dismissed.”

“...Summer nights held a special kind of loneliness that gave rise to strange imaginings. One walked the beach alone and thought too much.”

“Hate and love are essentially the same in that the person who loves is as easily manipulated as a person who hates”

“The silence lasted precisely five seconds, during which time eyes roamed other eyes, several throats were cleared, and no one moved in his chair. It was as if a decision were being reached without discussion: evasion was to be avoided. Congressman Efrem Walters, out of the hills of Tennessee by way of the Yale Law Review, was not to be dismissed with facile circumlocution that dealt with the esoterica of clandestine manipulations. Bullshit was out.”

“She's an old soldier's woman, and she has antennae for things that often escape the officer in the field.”

“What a man can't remember doesn't exist for him.”

“There'll come a moment when you think you can make it, and you'll try.”

“The easiest thing in the world is to convince yourself that you're right. As one grows old, it is easier still.”

“You're on your own now. You are not helpless. You will find your way.”

“Perhaps conscience did not always produce cowards. Sometimes it made a man feel better about himself.”

“It was important to keep moving. Certain struggles continued. Others had to be brought to a close. The wisdom was in deciding which.”

“The most precious jewels are not made of stone, but of flesh.”

“Credo quia absurdum – I believe because it is absurd.”

“I see things and I hear things I do not understand. I'm a skilled, resourceful... vegetable!”

“Sleep is a weapon!”

“A man's weaknesses may intrude on his faith but they do not diminish it.”

“Well, let me tell you, gentlemen, the games of the devil are not restricted to those confined to hell. Others can play them.”

“I mean, we're all trying to find out who the hell we are, aren't we?”

“You know, Mr. Webb, you have two commands you use with irritating frequency. 'Move' and 'Let's go.”

“He wasn't smart enough to see it, said Jason Bourne. He couldn't think geometrically.”

“You're on tenth base, I can't find you.”

“The success of any trap lies in its fundamental simplicity. The reverse trap by the nature of its single complication must be swift and simpler still.”

“Before taking her into the library, my wife told me she was an old friend in a marriage crisis. A fatuous lie; at her age there are no crises left in marriage, only acceptance and extraction. (General Villiers)”

“If I haven't done badly, it's because I've become indispensable to too many like David Abbott. I have in my head a thousand facts they couldn't possibly recall. It's simply easier for them to place me where the questions are, where problems need solutions. (Alfred Gillette)”

“I loathe him. He stands for everything I hate in Washington. The right schools, houses in Georgetown, farms in Virginia, quiet meetings at their clubs. They've got their tight little world and you don't break in--they run it all. The bastards. The superior, self-inflated gentry of Washington. They use other men's intellects, other men's work, wrapping it all into decisions bearing their imprimaturs. And if you're on the outside, you become part of that amorphous entity, a 'damn fine staff.' (Alfred Gillette)”

“How gratifying to be there when arrogance collapses. How much more so to be the instrument. (Alfred Gillette)”

“Men and women walked casually about as they did on the main floor, every now and then stopping one another, exchanging pleasantries or scraps of relevantly irrelevant information. Gossip.”